Federal abstinence funding fueled the purity movement that evangelicals embraced

Evidence

Like “servant leadership” and complementarian theology, the purity movement enabled evangelicals to reassert patriarchal authority in the face of economic, political, and social change. The widespread popularity of the purity movement was fueled in part by an injection of federal funds. As early as 1981, President Reagan began directing government funding to abstinence-only sex education, and this funding continued through the 1990s, reaching its peak under the George W. Bush administration; by 2005, more than 100 abstinence-based groups would receive more than $104 million in federal funding. Here was a case of government intrusion into the most intimate of matters, yet evangelicals didn’t seem to mind. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 393

Categorization

• QUESTION: Du Mez notes evangelicals tolerated federal intrusion into sex ed while decrying government overreach elsewhere — a tension worth probing for what it reveals about selective libertarianism.
• XREF: Connects to the earlier law-merchant/highlihted material on religious communities and institutional entanglement, and to broader readings on the Religious Right’s selective anti-government stance.